Tsou | |
---|---|
Cou | |
Native to | Taiwan |
Region | Alishan |
Ethnicity | Tsou |
Native speakers | 2,100 (2002) [1] |
Austronesian
| |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | tsu |
Glottolog | tsou1248 |
ELP | Tsou |
![]() (yellow) Tsou | |
![]() Tsou is classified as Vulnerable by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
Tsou (Cou) is a divergent Austronesian language spoken by the Tsou people of Taiwan. Tsou is a threatened language; however, this status is uncertain. Its speakers are located in the west-central mountains southeast of the Chiayi/Alishan area in Taiwan. [2]
The name Tsou literally means "person", from Proto-Austronesian *Cau through regular sound changes. It is therefore cognate with the name of the Thao.
Tsou has traditionally been considered part of a Tsouic branch of Austronesian. However, several recent classifications, such as Chang (2006) [3] and Ross (2009) [4] dispute the Tsouic branch, with Tsou more divergent than the other two languages, Kanakanabu and Saaroa.
Tsou does not have much dialectal variation. There are four recorded dialects: Tapangʉ, Tfuya, Duhtu and Iimcu, of which Tapangʉ and Tfuya are still spoken. Iimcu has not been well described. The grammar of the other three dialects is nearly identical, and phonological variation is marginal: In certain environments, Tapangʉ /i/ corresponds to Tfuya and Duhtu /z/ or /iz/, and Duhtu had /r/ for Tfuya and Tapangʉ /j/ (Actually, older speakers had been recorded to vary between [ɹ] and [j], but at that point the dialect was moribund.).
Tsou is spoken in the following villages: [5] All of the villages are located in Alishan Township, Chiayi County except for Mamahavana (Jiumei), which is located in Hsinyi/Xinyi Township, Nantou County. Both the native Tsou names and Chinese names are given.
Tapangʉ (Tapaŋʉ)
Tfuya (Tfuya)
Duhtu (Luhtu)
Iimucu – extinct
The description of Tsou phonology below is from Wright & Ladefoged (1994).
Tsou has six vowels, /iɨueoɑ/. Vowel sequences occur, including sequences of like vowels (/ii/ etc.), but these are separate moras rather than long vowels or diphthongs. Vowels, especially back vowels, are centralized when flanked by voiceless alveolar consonants (/t,ts,s/). This may involve a central offglide, so that /o/ is pronounced as a diphthong [öə̯] or [ɵə̯] in this environment. The sound /ɨ/ ~ /ʉ/ has been written <x>, possibly the only case in the world of x representing a vowel.
Labial | Alveolar | Velar | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||
Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | ʔ |
implosive | ɓ | ɗ ~ ˀl | |||
Affricate | ts ~ tʃ | ||||
Fricative | voiceless | f | s ~ ʃ | h | |
voiced | v | z ~ ʒ | |||
Approximant | w | ɹ ~ j |
The approximants /w/ and /j/ may surface as non-syllabic mid vowels [e̯] and [o̯], even (for /j/) in initial position (/jo~joskɨ/[e̯oˈe̯oskɨ] "fishes"; /w/ does not occur in initial position), explaining the spelling Tfuea (/tfuja/) for the name of the dialect. However, stress assignment ([ˈtfue̯a]) and restrictions on consonant clusters (see stress and phonotactics below) demonstrate that they behave as consonants.
The plosives are not aspirated. Phonetically aspirated stops are actually sequences of stop plus /h/, as can be seen by the fact that they cannot cluster with a third consonant (see phonotactics below), and by morphological alternations such as /phini/ ~ /mhini/ "to trade".
According to spectrum analysis, /h/ appears to be a glottal fricative in most environments, but approaches a velar [x] next to the central vowel /ɨ/, as in /tsaphɨ/ 'palm, sole'. However, the fact that the sequences /hʔ/ and /ʔh/ occur, when no other homorganic sequence is allowed, suggests that /h/ and /ʔ/ may not both be glottal. (Additional evidence that /h/ might best be analyzed as velar is the fact that */kh/ is not found, and that /hk/ is only found medially, in the single known word /kuhku/ "fox".)
The voiceless sibilants, /ts/ and /s/, are palatalized to [tʃ] and [ʃ] before the front vowels /i/ and /e/. However, the voiced sibilant /z/ is not affected by this environment.
The implosives /ɓ/ and /ɗ/ are uncommon. Both may be glottalized ([ʔɓ],[ʔɗ] or maybe [ʔb],[ʔd]) in intervocalic position. In addition, alveolar /ɗ/ has some unusual allophony: About a third of speakers pronounce it with a lateral release, or before /a/ as a lateral approximant [l], as in /ɗauja/[lauja] "maple". Indeed, Tsuchida (1976) transcribed it as a preglottalized lateral, [ˀl].
With a few exceptions, stress is not only predictable, but shifts when suffixes are added to a word. It falls on the penultimate vowel, or on the penultimate mora if a moraic analysis is adopted. That is, a final heavy syllable (double vowel) receives stress ([eˈmoo] "house"); otherwise, stress falls on the penultimate syllable ([oˈkosi] "his child"). Additional stress falls in a trochaic pattern: Every other light syllable (single vowel) also receives stress. Unstressed vowels are deleted, except at word boundaries (initial or final vowel) and unless doing so would create a forbidden consonant cluster (see below).
For example, the verb ⫽seʔe-nətəh-a⫽ "to cut with a bolo" takes stress on the syllables ⫽tə⫽ and ⫽ʔe⫽, and is realized as [sʔenˈtəha]. However, this does not explain all consonant clusters, many of which are lexically determined.
The most complex syllable in Tsou is CCVV. Tsou is unusual in the number of consonant clusters that it allows. Homorganic clusters are not allowed, unless one is a nasal consonant, and a maximum of two consonants may occur together, but otherwise about half of possible sequences are known to occur. For example, all non-homorganic sequences starting with /t/ and /ts/ are found. Missing clusters may not be allowed, or may simply be accidental gaps due to limited knowledge of the lexicon.
Initial or medial | Medial only |
---|---|
/pt,pts,ps,pn,pk,pŋ,pʔ,ph/ | /pz/ |
/ft,fts,fk,fŋ,fʔ/ | /fn/ [6] |
/vts,vh/ | /vn,vʔ/ |
/ɓn/ | /ɓk/ |
/mp,mf,mts,ms,mz,mn,mʔ,mh/ | /mɓ,mt/ |
/tp,tf,tv,tm,tn,tk,tŋ,tʔ,th/ | /tɓ/ |
/tsp,tsf,tsv,tsm,tsn,tsk,tsŋ,tsʔ,tsh/ | /tsɓ/ |
/sp,sv,sɓ,sm,sn,sk,sŋ,sʔ/ | — |
— | /zʔ/ |
/nm,nt,ns/ | /np,nv,nts,nz,nk,nʔ,nh/ |
/ks,kn/ | /kts,kʔ/ |
/ŋv,ŋh/ | /ŋm,ŋt,ŋts,ŋs,ŋz,ŋk/ [7] |
/ʔp,ʔv,ʔm,ʔt,ʔts,ʔs/ | /ʔf,ʔɗ,ʔn,ʔk,ʔh/ |
/hp,hv,hm,ht,hts,hn,hŋ,hʔ/ | /hs,hz,hk,hŋ/ |
In clusters of oral stops, both have an audible release burst. This is true even between vowels, an environment where the first stop has no audible release in most languages, supporting an analysis of these clusters as part of the syllable onset, with no syllable codas occurring in the language.
Stops, oral or nasal, may or may not have a release burst before a nasal stop, depending on the speaker. The initial clusters /hp,ht,hʔ/ are unusual cross-linguistically. The spectrum shows that the tongue moves towards an alveolar articulation during the /h/ of /ht/, demonstrating that it is not articulated as a velar. The initial clusters /pʔ/ and /tʔ/ are sometimes realized as two released stops, but sometimes with a single release, resembling ejective consonants in other languages. (/kʔ/ is again notably missing, except intervocalically, despite the fact that [kʼ] is the most common ejective cross-linguistically.)
Like most other Austronesian languages, Tsou displays a predicate-initial syntax.
Tsou has three main types of questions. [8]
Tsou has the following types of clauses:
Important function words are:
Case markers are as follows, with nominative forms placed before slashes and oblique forms placed after them (Zeitoun 2005:274). The nominative form is given when there are no slashes.
Tsou nouns are distinguished from verbs by the presence of case markers and suffixed genitive pronouns, both of which cannot be applied to verbs. [9] Verbs, on the other hand, have elaborate voice marking. Adjectives and certain adverbs actually function as verbs, since they also undergo voice inflection and are placed at the same positions within clauses as verbs (i.e., predicate-initial).
Tsou is unique for not having any preposition-like elements, instead using nouns or verbs to express these notions.
Main verbs can take on four types of voices, the actor voice and three undergoer voices, which are marked by suffixes. [10] [11]
Tsou verbs can be divided into five major classes (I, II, III-1, III-2, IV, V-1, V-2) based on morphological alternations (Zeitoun 2005:285). Tsou verbs do not have as many morphological distinctions as other Formosan languages do, since the Tsou language makes more extensive use of auxiliary verbs. For instance, there are no temporal/aspectual distinctions, separate markings for imperatives, and stative/dynamic distinctions. Nevertheless, Tsou still preserves the causative poa- (allomorphs: p-, pa-).
Tsou auxiliary verbs can carry temporal/aspectual and modal information as well as voice. They are marked for the following voices:
These auxiliary verbs can be divided into three classes:
Tsou has the following aspectual suffixes:
The personal pronouns below are from the Tfuya dialect of Tsou, and are sourced from Zeitoun (2005:265). Note that third-person pronouns are distinguished between those that are visible or non-visible.
Free | Bound | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
neutral | nominative | genitive | |||
1st person | singular | a'o | -'o/-'u | -'o/-'u | |
plural | exclusive | a'ami | -mza | -mza | |
inclusive | a'ati | -to | -to | ||
2nd person | singular | suu | -su/-ko | -su/-ko | |
plural | muu | -mu | -mu | ||
3rd person | visible | singular | taini | -ta | -taini |
plural | hin'i | -hin'i | -hin'i | ||
not visible | singular | ic'o | – | -si | |
plural | hee | – | -he |
Tfuya Tsou numerals are: [12]
Tens are derived with the circumfix (confix) m- -hʉ. There is also a u/ʉ vowel harmony phenomenon.
![]() |
These people live in the mountainous areas because dominating colonizers were in Taiwan for over 380 years. Outsiders have killed the indigenous people, burned villages, and forced them to move as the colonizers claimed more and more spaces. Some such colonizers were the Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, and Chinese. The outside rulers imposed their own education systems on the indigenous people, but the most notable influence came from the Kuomintang era, where Taiwanese people were forced to use Mandarin and where children were punished at school if they used their own indigenous language. This forced the original Taiwanese people to give up their language in order to survive in the new, imposed environment. [13]
Due to globalization, people are always in search of finding better lives if they're not completely happy, and young people are leaving the villages and looking for jobs in big cities. Because of this, children are not using the language and are not getting exposed to the culture as frequently, which means the language is not getting passed down to future generations. [13]
One survey from 1999 found that only 9% of the indigenous children could speak their native language, and most children preferred to use Mandarin, which is the official Taiwan language. Tsou is mostly used by community elders in ceremonies and certain gatherings. Unfortunately, since the parents are not fluent and do not view the language as practical for children, the language is rarely spoken at home. [13] The language is found more in school settings where children attend cultural learning programs. [14]
The Tsou language is recognized by the government. The government has allocated money dedicated to bring language programs to elementary and junior high schools, but the funds are sometimes inconsistent, which negatively affects the programs. It helped that the Martial law was lifted in 1987 and that people could freely speak their native languages again, however, so many other dominant languages were used that several native indigenous languages disappeared. [13]
The elders care about their language and worry that it may not survive in the future, so they welcome any help linguists may provide. In addition, the community has programs to maintain the language. One example is when children get to sing Tsou folk songs in kindergarten and continue to become exposed to other cultural programs through elementary school. People are relying heavily on these kids to keep the language, music, and culture alive. [14] There are programs for elementary and middle school kids to learn the language. Community members are very willing to get involved with events. It is difficult to teach the language because there is a lack of good teaching materials. Schools do not make learning the indigenous language a priority because if an event deemed more important occurs, teachers are likely to put off the language lesson. In addition, students have to worry about studying English, Mandarin, and entrance exam materials, so time is limited and the ethnic language is not a priority in the minds of the younger generation. [13]
The Austronesian languages are a language family widely spoken throughout Maritime Southeast Asia, parts of Mainland Southeast Asia, Madagascar, the islands of the Pacific Ocean and Taiwan. They are spoken by about 386 million people. This makes it the fifth-largest language family by number of speakers. Major Austronesian languages include Malay, Javanese, Sundanese, Tagalog, Malagasy and Cebuano. According to some estimates, the family contains 1,257 languages, which is the second most of any language family.
TaaTAH, also known as ǃXóõKOH, is a Tuu language notable for its large number of phonemes, perhaps the largest in the world. It is also notable for having perhaps the heaviest functional load of click consonants, with one count finding that 82% of basic vocabulary items started with a click. Most speakers live in Botswana, but a few hundred live in Namibia. The people call themselves ǃXoon or ʼNǀohan, depending on the dialect they speak. The Tuu languages are one of the three traditional language families that make up the Khoisan languages. In 2011, there were around 2,500 speakers of Taa.
The Formosan languages are a geographic grouping comprising the languages of the indigenous peoples of Taiwan, all of which are Austronesian. They do not form a single subfamily of Austronesian but rather up to nine separate primary subfamilies. The Taiwanese indigenous peoples recognized by the government are about 2.3% of the island's population. However, only 35% speak their ancestral language, due to centuries of language shift. Of the approximately 26 languages of the Taiwanese indigenous peoples, at least ten are extinct, another four are moribund, and all others are to some degree endangered.
Sandawe is a language spoken by about 60,000 Sandawe people in the Dodoma Region of Tanzania. Sandawe's use of click consonants, a rare feature shared with only two other languages of East Africa – Hadza and Dahalo, had been the basis of its classification as a member of the defunct Khoisan family of Southern Africa since Albert Drexel in the 1920s. Recent investigations however suggest that Sandawe may be related to the Khoe family regardless of the validity of Khoisan as a whole. A discussion of Sandawe's linguistic classification can be found in Sands (1998).
The Wariʼ language is the sole remaining vibrant language of the Chapacuran language family of the Brazilian–Bolivian border region of the Amazon. It has about 2,700 speakers, also called Wariʼ, who live along tributaries of the Pacaas Novos river in Western Brazil. The word wariʼ means "we!" in the Wariʼ language and is the term given to the language and tribe by its speakers.
Seediq, also known as Sediq, Taroko, is an Atayalic language spoken in the mountains of Northern Taiwan by the Seediq and Taroko people.
Kavalan was formerly spoken in the Northeast coast area of Taiwan by the Kavalan people (噶瑪蘭). It is an East Formosan language of the Austronesian family.
The Puyuma language or Pinuyumayan, is the language of the Puyuma, an indigenous people of Taiwan. It is a divergent Formosan language of the Austronesian family. Most speakers are older adults.
Rukai is a Formosan language spoken by the Rukai people in Taiwan. It is a member of the Austronesian language family. The Rukai language comprises six dialects, which are Budai, Labuan, Maga, Mantauran, Tanan and Tona. The number of speakers of the six Rukai dialects is estimated to be about 10,000. Some of them are monolingual. There are varying degrees of mutual intelligibility among the Rukai dialects. Rukai is notable for its distinct grammatical voice system among the Formosan languages.
Pazeh and Kaxabu are dialects of an extinct language of the Pazeh and Kaxabu, neighboring Taiwanese indigenous peoples. The language was Formosan, of the Austronesian language family. The last remaining native speaker of the Pazeh dialect died in 2010.
Kanakanavu is a Southern Tsouic language spoken by the Kanakanavu people, an indigenous people of Taiwan. It is a Formosan language of the Austronesian family.
Saaroa or Lhaʼalua is a Southern Tsouic language spoken by the Saaroa (Hla'alua) people, an indigenous people of Taiwan. It is a Formosan language of the Austronesian family.
Kara is an Austronesian language spoken by about 5,000 people in 1998 in the Kavieng District of New Ireland Province, Papua New Guinea.
Proto-Austronesian is a proto-language. It is the reconstructed ancestor of the Austronesian languages, one of the world's major language families. Proto-Austronesian is assumed to have begun to diversify c. 4000 BCE – c. 3500 BCE in Taiwan.
This article is about the sound system of the Navajo language. The phonology of Navajo is intimately connected to its morphology. For example, the entire range of contrastive consonants is found only at the beginning of word stems. In stem-final position and in prefixes, the number of contrasts is drastically reduced. Similarly, vowel contrasts found outside of the stem are significantly neutralized. For details about the morphology of Navajo, see Navajo grammar.
In phonetics, a homorganic consonant is a consonant sound that is articulated in the same place of articulation as another. For example,, and are homorganic consonants of one another since they share the bilabial place of articulation. Consonants that are not articulated in the same place are called heterorganic.
The phonology of Burmese is fairly typical of a Southeast Asian language, involving phonemic tone or register, a contrast between major and minor syllables, and strict limitations on consonant clusters.
This article describes the personal pronoun systems of various Austronesian languages.
The Hawu language is the language of the Savu people of Savu Island in Indonesia and of Raijua Island off the western tip of Savu. Hawu has been referred to by a variety of names such as Havu, Savu, Sabu, Sawu, and is known to outsiders as Savu or Sabu. Hawu belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family, and is most closely related to Dhao and the languages of Sumba. Dhao was once considered a dialect of Hawu, but the two languages are not mutually intelligible.
Wamesa is an Austronesian language of Indonesian New Guinea, spoken across the neck of the Doberai Peninsula or Bird's Head. There are currently 5,000–8,000 speakers. While it was historically used as a lingua franca, it is currently considered an under-documented, endangered language. This means that fewer and fewer children have an active command of Wamesa. Instead, Papuan Malay has become increasingly dominant in the area.